Robin Kang

Outlet Fine Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new woven panels and a video by Robin Kang. Her complex weavings continue the tradition of fine art textile that originated with the work of Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl. Their early Bauhaus tapestries, incorporating avant-garde design ideas with an exploration of new materials, are catalytic conceptual and visual references for Kang. Her work acknowledges the history of the loom and its relationship to early computing machines while looking forward to contemporary media and digital technology.

Part of a new generation of artists whose practice relies on digital processes, Kang’s work layers the world of textiles, design, and electronics. She uses a semi-automated Jacquard loom—a contemporary version of the first binary-operated machine and precursor to early computers—to simulate industrial production through repetition and pattern formation. These textiles use core memory chips and circuit boards as visual reference points that are translated into colorful and energetic woven tableaus that push the boundaries of the picture plane. She combines Photoshop brush-gestures with spiritual symbols sourced from ancient weaving traditions to connect the lineages of weaving, human production, and contemporary glitch aesthetics.

By lifting the foot pedal of the loom individually for the warp and manually inserting the weft yarn by hand, using a traditional shuttle and bobbin, Kang experiments with many kinds of yarns and synthetic materials. The hard edges of technology are softened by her innovative use of diverse fiber. The largest woven tapestry in this exhibition, employing eight layers of thread with a sculpture double cloth technique, was produced at the Audax Textielmuseum’s Textiellab (Tilburg, NL), which uses digital mechanisms to blur the lines between data visualization, textile design, and computer science.

As Kang explores universal themes using the language of textile, she creates a fresh, contemporary aesthetic with profound visual appeal.